such a nasty woman! | five wonderfully nuanced “unlikable” female main characters

Hello again, dear friends! One of my all-time favorite elements in a book is when a book has what many people view as an “unlikable female main character.” What can I say, we support women’s rights and women’s wrongs around here 😂 But beyond that, I think female main characters who aren’t traditionally “likable” can be an interesting peek into our social conciousness. So often I see female main characters get flack for traits and actions that male characters get off easy with all the time. Too often I hear readers—including female readers—saying things like, “She’s too bold, too brash, too harsh, too angry, too mean” when they say a character with the same traits who is male is just “a misunderstood bad boy with a heart underneath all those layers of snark.” I hear so many people masquerading misogyny as literary criticism, even if they are unaware they are doing so, too often.

I like “unlikable female main characters” because so often to me they seem to reveal the parts of women that we’re not allowed to share publicly—the deeper, darker desires that we have to hide in the cracks and crevices of our souls. Ambition, drive, lust, courage, ruthlessness, intellect, these are things we aren’t typically allowed to express without the direct permission and supervision of society, specifically, patriarchal society. I love seeing women unabashedly express these things, refusing to cower at their own glory.

So, today I wanted to celebrate unlikeable female main charracers by sharing some of my favorites from literature. Let’s take a look…

rielle dardenne

the empirium trilogy by claire legrand

Some say the Queen was frightened in her last moments. But I like to think that she was angry.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Rielle is such an interesting character! On the one hand, it’s so easy to dislike her, but on the other hand Legrand does an absolutely stunning job of making sure readers clearly understand Rielle’s psyche. At the end of the day, I think Rielle is a brilliant study of someone who is so desperate to be loved and approved of that she becomes easily manipulated. And while I don’t approve of the things Rielle does, I think it is somewhat easy to understand how anyone in her state of mind could be led down the same path. Another one of the things I enjoy about Rielle is the rich, complex backstory and motivation she’s given, which I think a lot of antagonistic characters are deprived of, especially when they’re women.

liesl

the wintersong duology by s. jae-jones

I surveyed my kingdom. Chaos. Cruelty. Abandon. I had always been holding back. Always been restrained. I wanted to be bigger, brighter, better; I wanted to be capricious, malicious, sly. Until now, I had not known the intoxicating sweetness of attention. In the world above, it had always been Käthe or Josef who captivated people’s eyes and hearts— Käthe with her beauty, Josef with his talent. I was forgotten, overlooked, ignored— the plain, drab, practical,talentless sister. But here in the Underground, I was the sun around which their world spun, the axis around which their maelstrom twirled. Liesl the girl had been dull, drab, and obedient; Elisabeth the woman was a queen.

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Liesl is very interesting to me because, while she’s not a character who I like or relate to at all, she’s also a character I find fascinating. I’m not sympathetic to her personality and beliefs, but I do understand them in a way. She’s pretty antagonistic when it comes to her sister and other beautiful women and she has some pretty warped views about sex and her own worth, but these are all because she’s so deeply insecure. And while I, personally, don’t believe insecurity is a decent reason for Liesl to be excused for being the way she is, it’s still a reason that is interesting to see play out on the pages of a book. Liesl is meant to be the heroine of Wintersong, but her selfishness and insecurity make it hard to like her too much, if at all. But I also gotta say that if unlikable men can be heroes of stories, then unlikable women should be allowed to be as well. And who knows, maybe that was one of the reasons Liesl was written how she is.

alice proserpine

the hazel wood by melissa albert

But I didn’t want the touchy-feely tragedy crap my therapist gave me to make me feel like I was less alone. I wanted that distance. I wanted that uncaring, ‘here’s your blood and guts and your fucked-up happy ending’ fairy-tale voice.

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Alice is actually one of the heroines I’ve seen get the most hate for being an “unlikeable” heroine. She’s prickly and prone to outbursts of anger—for a very specific reason that we don’t learn until the very end of The Hazel Wood. In one particular incident, she creates a situation where her Black, male friend is pulled over by the police, after which he has to point out to Alice exactly why that could’ve been dangerous for him. But at the same time, Alice’s status as a young girl who is so poor that she and her mother literally have lived out of a car put her on somewhat even footing with the boy in terms of how much danger police pose to them (trust me on this, as someone who is both Black American and a low income woman). I see a lot of readers who don’t understand this nuance get really upset with Alice. Alice is hated because she’s an angry girl. And, seeing as most girls are angry, especially when faced with a society that systematically marginalizes us, I don’t really see an issue with Alice’s anger. No, she doesn’t express her anger in the quiet, polite, “constructive” way that girls/women are expected to, but why should she have to in order to be seen as human and equal to a boy? Let girls be angry and loud and imperfect and messy for once!

xi feng

forest of a thousand lanterns by julie c. dao

She knew her own worth. She would seize her destiny with all the strength and spirit within her, and bend them all to her will: every man kneeling and every woman overshadowed.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Forget the Bechdal Test—how many times have you come across a villain origin story starring a female lead where the female villain didn’t turn to the dark side simply because she was scorned by a man she loved? I’ll wait.

One of the reasons I love Xi Feng despite her villainous tendencies is the unrepentant ambition that lies at the core of her very being from the beginning of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. Right from the start of the book, Xi Feng knows what she wants and she knows she is willing to obtain it by literally any means necessary. Her vanity, pride, arrogance, and ambition drive her to do unbelievable acts as she strives to reach her goals. Are those acts morally upright? Absolutely not. They’re cruel, self serving, and, ultimately, evil. But I think part of feminism is recognizing that women are capable of being equally as evil as men can be withtout viewing them/punishing them in a disproportional way.

spensa nightshade

the skyward series by brandon sanderson

“You watch yourself,” I said, wishing I had something to stand on to bring my eyes level with his. “When you are broken and mourning your fall from grace, I will consume your shadow in my own, and laugh at your misery.”

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Now, I, personally, didn’t dislike Spensa (despite her having a very different personality from my own), but she does have some stereotypically “masculine” personality traits that many people find “distasteful” in women, to say the least. Spensa is brash, bold, brave, loud-mouthed, and arguably quite aggressive and assertive. The thing is, though, like many of the other young women on this list, I totally understand the emotional place from which Spensa acts. She and her family are the outcasts of a society that values bravery above all other qualities after her father died and was branded a coward. So, naturally, Spensa overcompensates for this with bravado. She says and does some arguably questionable things, but it makes sense to her character and who she’s been forced to be by society. It’s really fascinating to see how who she is has been so deeply impacted by how society has treated her and her family. I think Spensa is an interesting testament to how our personalities and psyches are so incredibly affected by our social environment, and it’s interesting to see how the society of Skyward‘s different set of values propel Spensa to become who she is.

spill the beans, friends!

So that’s all I have for you today, friends! What are your thoughts on “unlikeable” female main characters? Do you love them or hate them? And, if you’ve read any of the above books, what are your thoughts on the female main characters I’ve chosen?

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Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.